Yes Bernie Madoff was bent, yes he was a crook, but let’s not kid ourselves that Bernie’s conviction and jailing somehow is testimony to speedy and swift American justice.

Far from it; Bernie dobbed himself in and pleaded guilty in March and saved the US regulators a long and tedious case of tracking down what he did and getting him to confess.

Despite facing 150 years in jail, which he got overnight, Bernie has refused to help investigators unravel his fraud.

Bernie will now become the pin up criminal for the credit crunch and recession. But that’s rewriting history to protect the truly guilty.

Madoff, like Allco, ABC Learning, subprime mortgages and Babcock and Brown, are all testimony to slack and poor regulation of the markets, just like Alan Bond was 19 years and more ago. He is also testimony to the incompetent regulators, bankers, industry figures and others who allowed him to flourish (especially those in Congress who received tens of thousands of dollars in donations).